U.S.-Japanese Ad Agency
Faces Cloudy Future in Asia

It is the oldest partnership between a Japanese and a U.S. advertising agency still surviving. But, competitors say, its future is cloudy.

The advertising industry has wondered since late 1999 what will happen to Young & Rubicam Inc.'s joint venture with the huge Japanese agency Dentsu Inc. That is when the U.S. ad agencies Leo Burnett Co. and D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles said they would merge and Dentsu would buy a 20% stake in the resulting holding company, called Bcom3 Group Inc. That left 20-year-old Dentsu...